An alternate theory that explains The Die is Cast

Kamakazie Sith · Post by **Kamakazie Sith** » 2002-09-25 09:21pm

Just an FYI;

In DS9 WotW you have phasers destroying BoP in one hit, and torpedoes doing the same.

In DS9 "A Call to Arms" you have 3 torpedoes destroying Jem'Hadar attack ships, and then multiple phaser blasts doing the same.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2002-09-25 09:26pm

Kamakazie Sith wrote:Just an FYI;

In DS9 WotW you have phasers destroying BoP in one hit, and torpedoes doing the same.

In DS9 "A Call to Arms" you have 3 torpedoes destroying Jem'Hadar attack ships, and then multiple phaser blasts doing the same.

You can't really generate anything from such small sample sizes, but I tracked the combat incidents in TNG and the first few seasons of DS9. I found that nearly 80% of the kills were caused by torpedoes.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-09-25 09:29pm

The Cardy defense platforms at Chintoka were using Phasers right? and they gutted some feds ships with ease.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2002-09-25 09:30pm

TheDarkling wrote:The Cardy defense platforms at Chintoka were using Phasers right? and they gutted some feds ships with ease.

They might have been phasers or compression beams. And they did gut Federation ships.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2002-09-25 09:35pm

Those defense platforms were something else entirely... When their shields were raised we did not see a single one of them destroyed. They were able to gut other ships with incredible ease. A quick shot from one phaser and then a volley from its torpedo launcher crippled the USS Galaxy. Even with shields down and systems inoperative, it took 6 Quantum Torpedoes just to destroy one platform.

And the crazy thing is with the Klingons, Cardassians, and Romulans fighting the Dominion and Breen at the Cardassia homeworld, the Federation expected to be able to take on those weapon platforms themselves and win with 40% losses. Makes you wonder just how they planned on taking them down (I doubt the old trick would work again) and how many ships they really had on hand.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2002-09-25 09:36pm

Master of Ossus wrote:
TheDarkling wrote:The Cardy defense platforms at Chintoka were using Phasers right? and they gutted some feds ships with ease.
They might have been phasers or compression beams. And they did gut Federation ships.

IMO those were likely Compression Beams because the OWPs were Cardassian design. But we do know the torpedoes were Plasma Torpedoes.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-09-25 09:40pm

Hmmm I just watched the battle - the defense platforms were firing Phasers but also Torps (Yellow ones - Cardy have yellow torps right?), however we see a Fed ship destroy a platform with two phaser shots (one to the shield then the platform deactivates and the 2nd phaser shot destroys it) while it takes a galaxy class 3 torps to destroy a platform.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2002-09-25 09:45pm

TheDarkling wrote:Hmmm I just watched the battle - the defense platforms were firing Phasers but also Torps (Yellow ones - Cardy have yellow torps right?), however we see a Fed ship destroy a platform with two phaser shots (one to the shield then the platform deactivates and the 2nd phaser shot destroys it) while it takes a galaxy class 3 torps to destroy a platform.

Umm... My clips don't show any of the active platforms killed.

As to the inactive ones and how many torps they take. It is possible that we aren't seeing all the damage some of those platforms took before they were destroyed. We saw one platform take 12+ PPC pulses as well as numerous Excelsior phaser strikes before it went down.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-09-25 09:46pm

Cardassians have plasma torps hmm I though it was just of those pointy eared fellows with the bad attitudes, that gives me an idea....

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2002-09-25 09:49pm

TheDarkling wrote:Cardassians have plasma torps hmm I though it was just of those pointy eared fellows with the bad attitudes, that gives me an idea....

Well, the first mention of Plasma torpedoes was in Tears of the Prophets. But latter you find out that Plasma torpedoes are the standard torpedo for the Romulans. Kinda explains why the Warbird kicks so much ass.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-09-25 09:49pm

Its just as the generator is going down - it takes a phaser hit which its shield blocks then the platform deactivates and the second shot kills it.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2002-09-25 09:50pm

TheDarkling wrote:Its just as the generator is going down - it takes a phaser hit which its shield blocks then the platform deactivates and the second shot kills it.

Ahh. A possible explination is this one had sustained damage shortly before it activated. Another possible explination is that sustained fire was slowly damaging its armor through the shields. I find the second explination more reasonable because it at least proves that it is possible to kill those damned things.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-09-25 10:00pm

Actually one of the active platforms does seem to be detroyed - in a collision with a Bird of Prey, three birds of prey making a run at it firing and one of them rams its and theres an explosion that seems to show the platform being destroyed.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2002-09-26 11:04am

Master of Ossus, your theory behind phasers partially bypassing shields has caught my interest. After examing some clips and remembering episoeds, this seems to be somewhat true. I am going to have to examine this with more detail. We might have a new and valid theory behind how phasers work in combat.

Rathark · Post by **Rathark** » 2002-09-27 01:37am

I have not seen this episode, so here's a question for those who have:

Is there any evidence that the phasers penetrated deeply into the crust, while the photorps exploded on (or above) the surface? Would that explain the differences in visible effect?

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-09-27 02:11am

Heres some caps - they arent high quality but I will annotate.

This would be the fleet made up of 20 ships (Some Romulan Warbirds and some Cardy Keldons)

Now here we have the shock waves at the points of impact (you will also notice some surface damage).

Weapons fire has ceased (you will note some explosions (bottom right and center) these were the sites of the most recent explosions - these explosions continue to grow for about half a second.

At this point we switch back to the Romulans reporting the 30% figure.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2002-09-27 10:22am

The Shockwaves clearly don't even cover anywhere near 30% of the planet, though. Their definition of "destroyed" must mean "mildly damaged," or not even that. Perhaps they are not.... well, I don't see how the dialogue is even possible given the visual evidence.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2002-09-27 01:18pm

Master of Ossus wrote:The Shockwaves clearly don't even cover anywhere near 30% of the planet, though. Their definition of "destroyed" must mean "mildly damaged," or not even that. Perhaps they are not.... well, I don't see how the dialogue is even possible given the visual evidence.

On the contrary, as I said they could be reporting that 30% of the crust was destroyed in the targeted area. That fits both the dialoge, the visuals, and the quoted time frame of 1 hour.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-09-27 02:35pm

Master of Ossus: Its eitehr a weird time lapse (doubtful) or Alyeska's 30% of target area destroyed - even going off of the original crust destruction in 1 hour we still arrive at very high figures.

I have also read that the explosions we see (just before we cut away I havent put that cap up) show a TT level explosion, I also read one other thing that gave me pause for thought - those shockwaves are the size of Europe, they aint no small matter.

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2002-09-27 02:50pm

Alyeska wrote:One thing to remember. If NDF makes a phaser massively more powerful then it would normally be against shields, one would notice that. Notice how powerful the torpedo damage was in comparison to the beam damage? Pretty damned comparable. Torpedoes shouldn't cause significantly more damage to ground targets then shields. Yet their firepower was shown similarly in that episode.

So? Isn't that proof then? That phasers almost matched torpedoes in damage done?

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2002-09-27 02:51pm

TheDarkling wrote:I have also read that the explosions we see (just before we cut away I havent put that cap up) show a TT level explosion, I also read one other thing that gave me pause for thought - those shockwaves are the size of Europe, they aint no small matter.

They also don't do any damage and travel too fast to be real atmospheric shockwaves.
It's probably a subspace phenomenon

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2002-09-27 02:52pm

His Divine Shadow wrote:
Alyeska wrote:One thing to remember. If NDF makes a phaser massively more powerful then it would normally be against shields, one would notice that. Notice how powerful the torpedo damage was in comparison to the beam damage? Pretty damned comparable. Torpedoes shouldn't cause significantly more damage to ground targets then shields. Yet their firepower was shown similarly in that episode.
So? Isn't that proof then? That phasers almost matched torpedoes in damage done?

Except they also are shown to be rougly equivilent in capship battles as well. TDIC proves that the NDF capability of the phaser does not multiple to larger degrees when used against rock because the torpedoes had similar affects, and torps are NDF weapons.

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2002-09-27 02:54pm

Alyeska wrote:Except they also are shown to be rougly equivilent in capship battles as well. TDIC proves that the NDF capability of the phaser does not multiple to larger degrees when used against rock because the torpedoes had similar affects, and torps are NDF weapons.

I am not sure about that, we hardly see whats going down there, using the size of the shockwaves is not a reliable measurement either since they are some weird funky things.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2002-09-27 03:18pm

His Divine Shadow wrote:
Alyeska wrote:Except they also are shown to be rougly equivilent in capship battles as well. TDIC proves that the NDF capability of the phaser does not multiple to larger degrees when used against rock because the torpedoes had similar affects, and torps are NDF weapons.
I am not sure about that, we hardly see whats going down there, using the size of the shockwaves is not a reliable measurement either since they are some weird funky things.

Well, I think NDF isn't quite what we think or doesn't do what we think. NDF beam weapons ought not create shockwaves on the surface of a planet. And they certainly don't cause them when hitting other ships.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2002-09-27 05:43pm

Do you even know what creates shockwaves? Small areas of high pressure. Hits against starships in space CANNOT create shockwaves, because there is no material there to push outwards. Now, for conventional explosives it is a bit different, because the explosion would create gases, but for beam weapons there can quite obviously be no shockwaves because there is no material to move quickly. Alyeska where do you come up with this stuff?